Image: A smiling Quaker woman holds a bayonet and takes a hat from a tall man who leans on his cane., Verse 678: Friend Jane - I have bought thee a Staff and Hat, which I hope will prove serviceable in these times., Provenance: McAllister, John A. (John Allister), 1822-1896, collector
Image: A Quaker woman carrying a parasol encounters another Friend, who carries a bayonet to a Friends' Meeting. A group of soldiers are lined up in the background. Mocks the Quaker pacifists who didn't want to contribute to the bloodshed., Verse 679: Friend Susan -- Why, Friend Broadbrim, what is thee doing with a musket and soldier clothes on! Friend Broadbrim -- I am going to the Friends' Meeting. Friend Susan -- Well, if thee does so, I hope the spirit will move thee to do something., Provenance: McAllister, John A. (John Allister), 1822-1896, collector
Image: A soldier drops his sword in surprise when he sees Friend Thomas coming at him with a sword in support of the Union., Verse 680: Friend Thomas -- Oh! ho! so thee was a going to fight, friend Secede, was thee? I hope thee has found out now that the Quakers are sound on the Union., Provenance: McAllister, John A. (John Allister), 1822-1896, collector
Image: An eagle labeled "Scott" wears a plumed hat, and stands next to packages that represent "Washington sauce", and "Cotton". The constitution rests under his feet., Verse 987: I think you've sauce enough, sly bird, and e're you further go, you'll get some red-hot pepper, that will make you "jump Jim Crow.", Provenance: McAllister, John A. (John Allister), 1822-1896, collector
Propaganda envelopes published by various publishers predominately utilizing racist caricatures and satires of African Americans in relation to Jefferson Davis, slavery, and secession to promote Union support of the Civil War. Satires utilize themes of inversion of social roles, retribution, and Northern superiority. Includes envelopes with same graphic and variant text or title; sexually explicit illustrations; images originally published in different media such as cartoons; and one Southern imprint promoting a united Confederacy as the safeguard of slavery. Some caricatures portray African Americans with exaggerated features and speaking in the vernacular., Includes images of enslaved people seeking freedom, as living "contraband of war," celebrating, or depicted as the shyster character Jim Crow; depictions of the "peculiar institution" of slavery showing a white enslaver in bed with an enslaved African American woman, her breast visible, and who is breastfeeding a white baby; secession equated to African American freedom seekers, economic destruction of the South, and the moral corruption of people emancipated from enslavement; Jefferson Davis caricatured as a traitor in execution and imprisonment scenes overseen by enslaved people; and views of enslaved people working on plantations with text declaring the end of "King Cotton." During the Civil War, the U.S. government declared African American freedom seekers as “contraband of war.”, Title supplied by cataloger., Date inferred from content., Some copyrighted by Magee and Harbach & Brother., Various publishers including: Philadelphia publishers John Magee, S.C. Upham, Harbarch & Bro., and King & Baird; New York publisher Charles Magnus; and Charleston, S.C. publisher G.W. Falen. Other publishers located in New York, Buffalo, Hartford, Cincinnati, and Lancaster, Pa., See Steven Berry's "When mail was armor: envelopes of the Great Rebellion," Southern culture (Fall 1998)., Probably originally part of a McAllister scrapbook of Civil War envelopes., RVCDC, Description revised 2021., Access points revised 2021., Part of digital collections catalog through a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services as administered by the Pennsylvania Department of Education through the Office of Commonwealth Libraries, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Tom Corbett, Governor, 2013-2014.
Date
1861-1865
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Civil War envelopes - African Americana [various]